New Missile Technology

Interviewer:

ASKS WHAT BY EARLY 1970S WAS SEEN AS IDEAL REPLACEMENT FOR
MINUTEMAN III MISSILE?

Allen:

The replacement of the Minuteman III was an issue for many
years in the Air Force. And many different configurations of missile were
studied. And many different employment schemes. In the late '60s and early
'70s...I'm not clear on what was the prevailing thought at that time, but
there had been a series of examinations of a rail mobile system, there had
been discussions of different kinds of silo basing. Many variants which were
being discussed of basing in, in lakes, in different kinds of mobile
systems. All trying to address the questions which were foreseen as the
Soviet missiles became more and more accurate.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS SEEN AS BEST DIRECTION TO GO IN TO REPLACE
MINUTEMAN III?

Allen:

Well the late '60s and early '70s were a little early for the
thought to have been congealed. Now it was really more of the mid-'70s when
it was very clear that MIRVing that is multiple independent re-entry
vehicles, was the technology which would change the future, in a number of
different ways. The principle one of which was that it made the ability to
deliver warheads substantially more economical. That is, one could put ten
re-entry vehicles on a single missile and pay the costs then for only one
missile while achieving ten weapons. And that clearly began to change the
thinking very rapidly during the '70s. There were by the mid and latter part
of the '70s, one clearly was talking about missiles with a number of warheads
on them, and ten was the number that was settling out.

Interviewer:

WHY TEN?

Allen:

I am not sure there is a, a magic reason that ten was the
optimum number. Different numbers were discussed at varying times. But ...
but ten was a number which would fit on a missile that seemed to optimize in
terms of its cost and effectiveness.

Interviewer:

WHY WERE MINUTEMEN III NOT ACCURATE ENOUGH? WHAT DID WE WANT
THESE TO BE ABLE TO DO?

Allen:

The Soviets were building harder and harder silos and there
is no question that the additional hardness of their deployed missiles and
the evidence that they were building other hardened structures for command
and control, were causing the Air Force a great deal of concern in the late
'70s at least. And therefore accuracy became very much a consideration.

Interviewer:

ASKS RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN ACCURACY AND HARDNESS OF TARGET?
[DISCUSSION]

Allen:

The most important point about hardness and accuracy really
is a conclusion that seems to be, to be true for emplaced missiles. And that
is that although we have been surprised by the increased hardness which the
Soviets have been able to build into their super-hard silos, the, the
technology fact remains that the missile accuracy can improve faster than
the hardness can improve. Therefore it is, it has always been clear that
even with a great deal of effort at hardening a silo one could design a
re-entry vehicle hard enough to give a satisfactory probability of
kill.

Interviewer:

WE FACED THAT KIND OF THREAT. WHY NOT GIVE UP OUR ICBMS
BECAUSE WE'D ALWAYS BE ON THE LOSING END OF THAT RATIO?

Allen:

The ICBMs have always been an important part of the, the
triad. They, each element of the triad has its own strengths and weaknesses
and the, the existence of the triad has been a source of great comfort to
the United States as the Soviets have made advances in one direction and
another. Certainly the submarines are the most invulnerable of the three
elements of the triad. The bombers have the advantage that they can be
launched in, under cases of warning, and then recalled if one is concerned
that the situation didn't develop as you expected. Bombers also have the
ability to have their, their striking power increased during periods of
tension by increasing the alert status. The great strength of the ballistic
missiles has been their accuracy on the one hand. But the more important one
these days is the very tight command and control of the missiles, which
gives a great assurance of the ability to issue the commands to them
properly and promptly.

Interviewer:

ASKS IF WHAT WE WANT TO DO WITH LAND-BASED LEG OF TRIAD IS
TO PUT SOME TARGETS AT RISK THAT WE CAN'T WITH THE OTHERS?

Allen:

The ICBMs today provide an accuracy which is only slightly
greater than that of the planned D-5 missile on the Trident submarines.
Therefore as time has gone on in recent years, the uniqueness of accuracy of
the ICBMs has, has been diminished. The ICBMs still though play a unique
part in the triad and the United States although it has considered giving up
the ICBMs, the land-based missiles a number of times, has always found it a
very uneasy thing to do, under circumstances that the Soviets place such a
large amount of their reliance on land-based missiles. And even though it's
hard to quantify the reasons for it, there is a feeling that too much
asymmetry, that is differences in the deployed forces of the two countries,
can create some, some circumstances which, which would be unstable. And
therefore the United States has even though it's considered giving up the
land-based missiles, has always concluded that it was unwilling to do so,
unless it could negotiate with the Soviets for a very large reduction in the
land-based missiles.

Comparisons between U.S. and Soviet Missile Technology and Strategy

Interviewer:

WAS THERE A TURNING POINT IN THE 70S WHEN WE KNEW OUR SILOS
WERE BECOMING VULNERABLE?

Allen:

There certainly seemed to be a turning point. The turning
point was in...late 73 or 74, I've forgotten just exactly the date. But it
was when the, a second team was put together to examine the intelligence
estimate of that year. And although that team was put together for a number
of different reasons and a number of different varying conclusions came out,
one of the things that they assembled was a re-estimate of the progress that
the Soviets were making in, in the precision guidance of their ballistic
missiles. Now prior to that time there had been a notion that the United
States was quite alone and very far ahead of the Soviets in the ability to
guide missiles very precisely. And the evidence uncovered during that ...
that alternate team's examination of the intelligence of data that was
available, indicate very clear that the Soviets were making progress and, in
missile accuracy which had not been properly anticipated. And therefore the
thinking began to change very, very rapidly following that report as to the
accuracy that the incoming new generation of Soviet missiles would
have.

Interviewer:

UP TO THEN THAT THREAT HAD NOT BEEN TAKEN SERIOUS. THEY
WERE MORE CONCERNED WITH DEVELOPING ACCURACY?

Allen:

Yes. I, I think it's true that in the early '70s the
replacement for the Minuteman had accuracy as its foremost objective. But
that certainly changed very rapidly by the time we reached the mid-'70s
because from that point on the vulnerability of the basing scheme for the
replacement missiles of the Minuteman became the dominant
consideration.

Interviewer:

WAS IT LIKELY THAT THE SOVIETS COULD THINK THEY COULD
SURPRISE US AND TAKE OUT OUR LAND-BASED FORCE AND NOT SUFFER
RETRIBUTION?

Allen:

Whenever we examine deterrence we have to recognize that
the deterrence has many facets. And the United States always relies heavily
on all legs of the triad. For example, if the Soviets did consider that a
pre-emptive effect against our missile fields...would knock them out, the
United States is still able to rely upon the submarine force and the bomber
force to provide a very substantial degree of retaliation. But at the same
time the reason one has a triad is of course that an unexpected
vulnerability in one leg of the triad is compensated by the strengths of the
other. And therefore, although one does not foresee it and did not at that
time foresee it, it is not impossible that some vulnerability would arise in
the submarine force. That is, a breakthrough in anti-submarine warfare would
occur. And that one would need to rely on the other legs of the triad
besides the submarine. Similarly the bombers have to face a very awesome
Soviet air defense system and the progress in developing, improving bomber
technology to penetrate those defenses is one that is not without its own
share of controversy. So, once again, even though one would consider it
quite unlikely that the Soviets would see advantage to a bolt from the blue
attack against US land-based missiles, it still is true that to keep our
deterrent capability robust and at all times credible, one wishes to have a
survivable land—based missile force.

Interviewer:

ASKS ROLE OF ACCURACY IN DETERRENCE, BEING ABLE TO THREATEN
THEIR TARGETS?

Allen:

In, as the Soviets examine the equation of whether there
could be any advantage in a nuclear war, in order that we can be sure that
we can be sure they are deterred. They have to consider what the
capabilities of each of the attack, of our retaliation forces are. The
Soviets have gone to a great deal of effort to harden many facilities in the
Soviet Union, particularly leadership facilities, control bunkers, deep
underground facilities of various kinds. As well as their emplaced missile
forces. So it is important that the United States have some means of holding
these hardened facilities at risk.

Interviewer:

WHY DO WE WANT TO BE ABLE TO TARGET THEIR LEADERSHIP
BUNKERS AND SO ON?

Allen:

The rationale is that if the Soviets have worked as hard as
they have worked to make these facilities survivable, then they must have
some notion in their minds that if there is a nuclear exchange, that the
survivability of these leadership functions, and of course of the missiles
themselves, will put them in a more favorable situation. In order to ensure
that war to them, as it does to them, always looks to be a very unattractive
proposition, we wish to hold each of the things they hold dear at
risk.

Interviewer:

DO WE DO THE SAME THINGS FOR OURSELVES? DO WE PROTECT OUR
COMMAND AND CONTROL TOO?

Allen:

The situation is not entire symmetric. The United States
over the years has not invested as much in hardening and it's, it's to me at
least, somewhat unclear as to why this difference exists between the two
countries. I, I suspect it is that the United States really has accepted a
deterrence philosophy and really does believe that there is very little
merit in waging a nuclear war and very little opportunity to, to survive
effectively. Therefore we've worked a little bit less harder on the
survivability of command and control and leadership...elements of the
United States. Now the Reagan Administration has attempted to change that to
some degree and has directed that a great deal more attention be placed on
the survivable elements of the command and control and leadership. And some
progress is being made in that, in that area.

Interviewer:

DO THE SOVIETS BELIEVE FIGHTING A NUCLEAR WAR IS MORE POSSIBLE
THAN WE THINK IT IS?

Allen:

It may be that the Soviets believe that a nuclear war, that
winning a nuclear war, surviving to meet your national objectives after a
nuclear war is, is more possible than the United States does. But
nevertheless I think that we, that I am convinced that the Soviet leadership
does not believe that the results of a nuclear war would be very happily...
very happy for the socialist state. And therefore I think that they do share
with us, the view that... that one is really at a state of extremis when one
resorts to nuclear weapons.

During the 1977 and early '78 time period, the Air Force
was in the midst of weighing several basing alternatives which included
tunnels, that is almost a subway like structure, under the ground through
which the missile would move. It included widely spaced...vertical silos in
which missiles could be emplaced and removed. And it included horizontal
structures. And there were really other variants on these as well which were
considered. Many of the strategic thinkers in the area in the technical side
were influential in advocating one scheme or another or arguing against one
particular scheme or another. I recall in, in late '77 that, that Albert
Latter, formerly of RAND Corporation, made a very strong pronouncement to me
personally which I think he had done publicly in other arenas, advocating
particular aspects. My recollection is that at that time he was a particular
advocate of the vertical silo. And had some numbers which led him to believe
that that would be much less expensive than, than the tunnel. But in any
event there was a very vigorous dialogue during that period of time to try
to settle in on what seemed to be the, the most optimum scheme.

Interviewer:

WHAT WAS WRONG WITH THE TUNNEL?

Allen:

The tunnel had as its major flaw simply expense. That is,
it was necessary to design the tunnel to be hard over its length, and to
permit the missile to move back and forth in the tunnel rapidly and still be
survivable as it went to various locations. As we worked through the details
of it, it simply appeared that that was a more expensive solution than was
the one which we ultimately settled on which was horizontal silos.

Interviewer:

ASKS ABOUT PROPAGATION OF MAGNETIC PULSE ALONG THE
RAMPS?

Allen:

There were concerns about the tunnel simply having to do
with the fact that it was, it was connected, that is therefore an effect at
one part of the tunnel could be propagated down the tunnel in a manner which
wasn't entirely predictable. We thought we had answers to that, but the
answers themselves were fairly complicated. And it was part of the reasons
for, for ending up choosing the independent horizontal silos, connected by
surface roads. As contrasted to, to hardened locations along an underground
tunnel.

[END OF TAPE A12151]

Interviewer:

WHAT DID HE DO WHEN TRENCHES DID NOT GO WELL?

Allen:

Somewhere in this '77, '78 time period, John Toomay, who
was an Air Force Major General, and one of the best of the strategic
analysts led a team to examine the various alternatives that existed and to
make recommendations as to which of those the Air Force should follow. And
the, these choices ran between the, the vertical silo, with an argument
being made that with a fairly cheap silo and a smaller missile, one would
have a more inexpensive set up than some of the other alternatives that were
examined. The, the horizontal basing was also examined, and the tunnel
basing was also examined in those studies.

Interviewer:

WAS THE BALLISTIC MISSILE OFFICE LOATH TO GIVE UP TUNNEL
CONCEPT?

Allen:

Yes. The Ballistic Missile Office had favored the tunnel
for some time. Although the reasoning for it wasn't all that profound. It
was just necessary to make choices and they had made a choice which said
that the tunnel was the better system. So they had invested a certain amount
of their effort in making that one a more well defined concept than the
others. However, it was still best described as a period of vigorous debate
because there was not all that much to choose between the various choices,
that is, each one of them could be varied in such a way that you could make
the advantages and disadvantages overlap. But the Ballistic Missile Office
chose the tunnel approach. Some of the thinkers outside of the Air Force
were advocating smaller missiles and more proliferation of those, of those
missiles. And it was a, it was a vigorous debate to settle into the final
choice.

Interviewer:

ASKS ABOUT THOSE WHO PREFERRED SMALLER MISSILES. WHERE DID
PRESSURE COME FROM TO MAKE TEN-WARHEAD MISSILE?

Allen:

The arguments having to do with the number of warheads on a
given missile, have gone back and forth many times. And indeed it is one of
the most prominent arguments on the strategic scene today. At...What has
happened in each of these analyses is that when one is down to, to the final
examination of cost, which in general includes the operational costs, that
is to maintain and operate the missile over a long period of time, the
larger number of warheads on the missile turns out to be cheaper. And
therefore the Air Force and all of these studies initially favored somewhat
smaller configurations but in finally working through the costs, would end
up settling in on the larger number of re-entry vehicles which is the
ten-warhead MX. Now that argument continues today of course because the
recognition of the vulnerability questions have led prominent people in the
United States and particularly the Scowcroft Commission to recommend major
effort on a, on a single warhead ballistic missile. Which has very large
advantages in terms of the survivability of the force. But it also has very
large operational costs. And that is the debate which is facing the country
today.

Interviewer:

WHAT ABOUT VERTICAL CHEAP SHELTERS WHICH WERE FAVORED? HOW
DID IT CHANGE TO HORIZONTAL?

Allen:

The final selection of horizontal over vertical is lost a
bit in the arcane analyses and cost estimates but was, was finally made in
my recollection of the key arguments on the basis of cost. That is, it
appeared simply easier to construct the roads and the transport vehicles and
the shelters if they were horizontal. And the ease in being able to make the
deception effective, which involved putting a heavyweight dummy into a silo
as you removed the missile seemed also to be somewhat easier in the
horizontal structure.

Interviewer:

WAS IT TOUGH TO COMPETE WITH SOVIETS IN TERMS OF
DECEPTION--WHEN IT'S EASIER FOR THEM TO DO DECEPTION IN THEIR SOCIETY?

Allen:

The United States in examining these questions of
survivability has always been at a relative disadvantage with the Soviets.
First of all, for, for true mobile missiles the United States has, has not
found it really possible to move missiles freely around the countryside. The
concern of the citizenry and the lack of very large spaces which are
completely under government control, have made that approach rejected
whenever it's been considered. The Soviets on the other hand have had true
mobiles, moving about on roads, and they don't seem to have to worry so much
about the public reaction to truly mobile missiles. So the United States has
always been forced into some kind of system of, of looking for mobility, in
order to provide survivability. But having to have that mobility constrained
in some manner which would make it acceptable to the public as it, as it
moves about. The...when one does that, then one needs to include some
deceptive techniques, that is some way of insuring that within the
restricted space that you now have confined the movement of the missiles,
that you can keep the actual location of the missile uncertain to Soviet
espionage, satellite observational techniques. And that's proven to be a
challenge, a challenge that the Soviets don't have to face in the same
way.

Interviewer:

COULD WE HAVE DONE THAT IN THE UTAH SYSTEM?

Allen:

Yes, I became confident that the basing system that we
worked out, in which there had been a great deal of attention given to the
methods for preserving uncertainty about the location of the missile within
the various bases. It would work. It was going to be difficult and require
care over years that the system would operate. But I believe that it could
have been made to work.

Comparisons between the Carter and Reagan Administrations’ views on Nuclear Defense Policy

Interviewer:

CITES RIDICULE-—A RUBE GOLDBERG SCHEME DESIGNED FOR ARMS
CONTROL, ETC. WHAT WAS HE RESPONSE?

Allen:

I was very disappointed that the particular scheme that we
had worked out, very, with a great deal of difficulty with the Carter
Administration, President Carter had his own particular ideas about the
features that the system should have. That it was difficult to accommodate
those. We had gone to many, many different design variations in order to
obtain the acceptance of the Carter Administration, and the system that we,
that we did finally obtain, I believed was a reasonable design compromise to
meet the objectives which the United States had. Some of the features that
President Carter wanted were abandoned as the system evolved. For example,
he was concerned about a circumstance that might arise if we lost our
secrecy, where the missile was. And therefore he continuously asked us
questions, "But what happens if you wake up one day and find that a spy or
someone has revealed to the Soviets where each of the missiles are? And
therefore he encouraged us to, to include in the system a rapid movement
capability. Unfortunately that came to be known as "The Racetrack," and we
never quite were able to lose that, that name for the system. Even when we
abandoned that particular idea, and it added a bit to the, to the Rube
Goldberg character which people ascribed to this particular approach. As we
would have implemented and I think the Rube Goldberg character was not
correct, I think that the provisions that we had put in to both make it
compatible with arms control were useful and set a good precedent for mobile
systems that could be verified and the pains that we went to to preserve the
location uncertainty I think were both needed and would have been
successful. When the Reagan Administration came in, unfortunately it had
been a part of Mr. Reagan's campaign that this was a, a very bad approach.
And therefore he clearly was not very enthusiastic about this particular,
particular basing scheme and established several studies very early in his
Administration to look at it. Those studies were very much prejudiced
against the acceptability of this because they did not allow the
consideration of an arms control environment, and part of the assumption was
that the Soviets would likely proliferate their accurate warheads to very
large numbers. In which case any system that depended upon having multiple
locations would not look good under those, under those assumptions. That was
unfortunate because it caused us then to, to abandon the multiple basing
mode, but without having an acceptable alternative. As it's turned out now I
think it's a bit ironical that, a bit ironic, that at the end of the Reagan
Administration where arms control is now back in vogue and that one no
longer finds it necessary to imagine these very large proliferated number of
accurate warheads on the Soviet side, a multiple basing scheme could have
been successful.

Interviewer:

DID CARTER'S SYSTEM DEPEND ON ARMS CONTROL?

Allen:

The system that we designed in the Carter Administration
because of clear limitations on cost, would end up having a finite number of
locations in which the missile would be, missiles would be hidden. I think
the one that about the end of the Carter Administration would have had 2300
missile horizontal silos to be stored. And the...

Interviewer:

INTERRUPTS HIMSELF/DISCUSS

Allen:

At the end of the Carter Administration, we were looking at
a configuration which would involve 200 missiles, deceptively located in
some 4600 horizontal silos. Now 4600 is a finite number and of course it
becomes expensive to add more although we went through the cost exchange
numbers if we had to increase that number of silos. But, the 4600 is already
a very respectable number, that is, it negates, for instance, the entire
capabilities of the Soviet SS-18 force, which contains some 3000 very
accurate warheads. Therefore it was our view that under any condition where
there would be some kind arms control, SALT II for example, even with all of
its limitations of only providing caps, still provided an upper limit of the
number of accurate RVs which the Soviets would have. And that particular
basing of MX would have been an effective deterrent under conditions of
adhering to SALT II. Therefore, when the Reagan Administration didn't wish
to, to assume those limits, it was disappointing that it became less evident
that that would be an acceptable system.

Interviewer:

DID HE GO TO UTAH/NEVADA TO DEAL WITH PUBLIC
REACTION?

Allen:

During the period of time that we were examining the
environmental impact of placing these missiles and their, and their road
structure in silos, in the deserts, we examined actually a number of
different. We examined sites in Texas and New Mexico, in the Sonoran Desert,
Colorado and Arizona, and in the deserts of Utah and Nevada. As it turned
out, after examining all of these, the … the deployment areas in Utah and
Nevada turned out to have the least environmental impact, and had other
advantages in terms of cost that we felt were important. So we settled in
pretty well on Utah and Nevada. We anticipated concern of the citizenry,
obviously, spent a great deal of time anticipating those concerns and trying
to deal with them. I made visits into, into the area, made visits to talk
with the leadership in the state of Nevada, and with the leadership in the
state of Utah. And I flew over every one of those valleys and looked at them
to try and get a feel for myself for the kind of terrain that we were going
to be altering. The concern about all of this matter was such that the then
undersecretary of the Air Force, Antonia Chayes, devoted almost full time to
addressing the questions of the environmental impact of the, of the MX
basing system. And although it was difficult and certainly not everyone in
those states was enthusiastic about, about the basing systems, I, I believe
that we would have prevailed, and that it would have, it could have been
done in a manner which would have been acceptable to the, to the principal
people involved, and done with minimal environmental impact.

Interviewer:

IT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE "IF" WHAT HAD HAPPENED?

Allen:

If in the Reagan Administration there had been continuing
support of the MX deceptive basing scheme, I believe that we would have been
able to handle the situations in Nevada and Utah. Clearly not everyone was
enthusiastic and there would have been difficulties, and there had been
certainly opposition mustered, but the need was great and with a president
as strong as President Reagan, and with as much public support as he had,
had he chosen to endorse that scheme, I think we would have been able to
base it in those areas.

Interviewer:

ASKS ABOUT HIS USE OF PHRASE "RV SPONGE," OR "WARHEAD
SPONGE"?

Allen:

In describing how deterrence works and what the advantages
of one system or another are, it's difficult to find the right words. That
is, one is talking about building a system which has characteristics such
that it will not be attacked. That one never imagines that anything is
successful if the war actually occurs and the missiles have to be attacked.
So one is describing a system which when the Soviets view it, will be viewed
as being, being unsuitable for attack. In one of the early speeches, in
describing this particular element of strategy, and describing how this,
this deceptive basing system would negate the effectiveness of the Soviet
accurate RVs, I made a grave semantic error, that is, I chose to describe
this as a sponge which would, which could absorb the accurate RVs of both
the Soviet SS-18s and indeed many of their SS-19s as well. That was not
intended to be a picture of how war would be fought, but would be a picture
of how the Soviets would view the system and therefore be deterred and, and
not attack. But unfortunately the people in whose backyards these systems
were going to be in place did not much like the word sponge, and it was one
that I had a hard time living down.

Interviewer:

ASKS HIM TO REPEAT ANSWER.

Allen:

Whenever one is describing publicly deterrent forces, it's
a concept which is awkward to describe, because one is talking about forces
and their survivability, in terms which are seen by the, by the Soviets such
that they will not attack. So one imagines that the, the having forces which
are truly survivable will have the effect of the Soviets not wishing to
attack them. For example, in the MX, and the deceptive basing mode, one of
the strengths of that system is with the number of, of proliferated
shelters, that if the Soviets were having to view an attack on the United
States, they would have to employ all of the warheads from their SS-18s, a
major portion of their land-based force, and many of the warheads from their
other systems as well, if they were to contemplate knocking out these MX
missiles. And it would be hard for them to attack and not contemplate
knocking them out. Therefore we believe that that ability to survive such a
massive attack was a real contribution to deterrence. Unfortunately, in
describing all of that very early in these debates, I used the word "sponge"
and as indicating something that could soak up the Soviet attack but still
having the capability of retaliating. Well the sponge was an unfortunate
word to use because it gave the connotation for the people in whose
backyards we used to employ these missiles as being something that would
attract an attack rather than deter one. So I regretted ever having used
that term.

[END OF TAPE A12152]

Allen:

The Reagan Commission,
the Reagan Administrastion, was very wise in appointing the Scowcroft Commission to
re-examine all aspects of the, of the MX missile and the nuclear principles
of deterrence. This was a commission that was put together of people with
such high credibility that their report achieved a very large degree of
acceptance. And in their report they re-examined these principles of
deterrence, tried to find grounds on which there would be a political
compromise that people could accept, and although they were faced with a
moderately unsolvable situation, nevertheless did make first a report which
clarified the thinking of people in the country, I think, a great deal, and
then made some recommendations which I think were very, very sensible. The
main one of these I think was the movement to a single warhead
missile.

Interviewer:

DID HE TRY TO SEE REAGAN OR WEINBERGER, TO TALK THEM OUT OF
REJECTING THIS BASING MODE?

Allen:

I personally had had no contact with the Reagan
Administration during the time of the election or really in any particular
detail during the time of transition. But very soon after President Reagan
came into office and Mr. Weinberger became Secretary, these issues
associated with the missile basing came to the fore. And it was very clear
that because of the statements that Mr. Reagan had made during the candidacy
that there was a great lack of enthusiasm for the deceptive basing mode
which we had established. One of the early actions then of the Reagan
Administration was to pull together a commission under Charles Townes of the
University of California to review the situation and to make varying
recommendations. That particular commission which was composed of very
competent people examined under a set of ground rules which they were
provided, which were basically a no arms control circumstance. That is, even
the limits of SALT II were not to be employed but instead they were to
examine circumstances in which the Soviets were presumed to have increased
the number of, of weapons on their very accurate missiles considerably. As a
matter of fact, almost without bound. Under those circumstances a system of
deceptive basing does not look attractive and indeed the Townes Commission
ended up recommending that since the system could be overwhelmed by very
large numbers of weapons on the Soviet side, that it was inappropriate to
continue it. And then they made a set of recommendations which were really a
list of alternatives, of other kinds of basing schemes. They included the
idea of a very large airplane which would carry missiles around and stay in
the air for very long periods of time. And they included super hard silos.
It, it turned out that these were in my view not very good ideas, that is,
they, they rejected the scheme that we had for reasons that dealt with their
views of arms control. But the alternatives picked were not very attractive
alternatives. And so as a result the issue has continued to, to be examined
somewhat unsatisfactorily ever since.

Interviewer:

DID HE SEE WEINBERGER OR REAGAN TO TRY TO SHOW THEM THE
ADVANTAGES OF THE BASING SYSTEM HE HAD WORKED OUT?

Allen:

I had the opportunity to explain to both Secretary
Weinberger and at least on one or two occasions to President Reagan the
arguments which I felt were in favor of the basing system that the Air Force
advocated. These meetings were not successful.

Interviewer:

ASKS ABOUT NSC MEETING IN AUGUST '81.

Allen:

The meeting that I recall during that time frame was a
meeting that was held in Los Angeles. There was one particular point in the dialogue where we
were discussing the pros and cons of the MX basing system in which I was
called to Los Angeles because the President was here on one of his trips.
And he convened a meeting at the Century Towers where a number of his
advisers appeared, including Secretary Weinberger, and Secretary Haig and
others, others of the Cabinet, and at which Charles Townes was present. And
I was present and General Jones, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs were
present. And we made our arguments as to why we thought the MX basing system
was the preferred system and, and Charles Townes presented the results of
his commission which led to a different commission. The President didn't
indicate his decision at that time but it was, it was rather clear that the
predominance of advice that he was listening to was unfavorable to our
particular approach.

Interviewer:

HOW DID HE TRY TO CONVINCE THE PRESIDENT THAT THE AIR FORCE
APPROACH WAS THE BETTER WAY?

Allen:

I think at that particular meeting that I can't recall the,
the actual way in which General Jones and I framed our arguments. But they,
they did, I am sure, include a rebuttal to the very large Soviet... weapon
assumptions of Charles Townes. That under a SALT II cap, and hopefully
further progress in arms control, that those arguments were not the ones
that would really drive. And that if one allowed the Soviets, or was in a
situation where the Soviets would increase the numbers of warheads targeted
against the Soviet Union almost without bound, that the United States had
many other problems besides the survivability of the MX basing system. And
that we pointed out to him that that really wasn't the conditions one wished
to encourage. That it was really acceptable to go the way we were saying,
couple it with arms control, and obtain deterrence in that fashion. But the
President at that particular time in the early parts of his Administration
clearly wanted to establish a, a principle that he would not rely upon arms
control to provide the security for the United States and therefore he
simply wouldn't accept that line of reasoning.

Interviewer:

DID HE SUGGEST THAT CONGRESS HAD ACCEPTED HIS SCHEME, THAT
CHANGES TO BASING MODE MIGHT RUIN CHANCES TO DEPLOY MX AT ALL…?[DISCUSSION}

Allen:

It was of course disconcerting to me, and to the Air Force
in general, to General Jones as the Chairman as well, that the efforts we
had undertaken with such difficulty during the Carter Administration since
he was no big enthusiast of land-based missiles in the first place, were
being discarded. We felt that we had forged a fragile but still workable
consensus in the Congress and among the people in the states that were
affected and among all of the strategic thinkers who had gone through all of
the agonizing list of alternatives which we had examined. Therefore it was
disappointing and disconcerting to have all of that unravel so
quickly.

Interviewer:

DID HE WARN REAGAN THAT HE MIGHT LOSE CONSENSUS AND SUSPEND
THE MX FOREVER TRYING TO FIND ANOTHER BASING MODE?

Allen:

I don't recall doing that...so...

Interviewer:

ASKS ABOUT TOWNE'S ARGUMENT THAT THE COST OF ADDING A NEW SHELTER WOULD BE
GREATER THAN FOR SOVIETS TO BUILD NEW WARHEAD?

Allen:

In the Townes Commission report one of the arguments which
he made was that it was cheaper for the Soviets to add weapons to their
missile systems by, by proliferation. That is, by increasing the, the number
of multiple, independently targeted warheads on each missile. That it was
for us to build additional shelters to compensate for that. And that
argument of course is true. That is, if there are no other restrictions, the
advantage goes to the offense in very high degrees of proliferation. We
mustered the best arguments we could against that, but in the final
analysis, if the ground rules were that there were to be no arms control
environment at all, that is no restriction on the amount of proliferation
which the Soviets would be assumed to follow, then it was very difficult to
have a, an acceptable deceptive basing mode.

MX Missile system and Alternatives

Interviewer:

WERE YOU NOT AFRAID TO DELAY OR LOSE THE 200 MX MISSILES
YOU HAD PLANNED FOR DEPLOYMENT?

Allen:

The deepest concern of course that the Air Force had was
that in the absence of a basing mode we felt that the Congress, well, or
any, many thinking people, would simply not be in favor of the MX system at
all. That is, an MX missile, without an acceptable, survivable basing system
is simply not the best investment for the country to make. Therefore, since
the results of the Town...Townes Commission had not, in our opinion, not
resulted in an accepted alternative basing mode, the rejection of the basing
mode in which we had worked so hard put the entire program in severe
jeopardy. Now at this particular time the Reagan Administration had not
decided to reinstate the B-1. So our concerns were really quite deep that,
that an Administration was coming into office whose pronouncements in favor
of strengthened national security were very positive, but whose actions were
putting the strategic retaliatory capability of the United States in
substantial jeopardy. And therefore we were deeply concerned.

Interviewer:

WHY WAS NOT AIR FORCE IN FAVOR OF RECOMMENDATIONS FOR AIR
MOBILE MX?

Allen:

The...One of the schemes that has been examined over the
years is to place the missiles in aircraft, and then to fly the aircraft in
order to provide invulnerability. This has been examined many times and has
almost always failed in several tests that one would like to provide for it.
Cost being one of those. But also, the particular scheme that the Townes
Commission examined was the idea that one could construct a new kind of
airplane, and airplane that would be very inexpensive to fly for very long
periods of time. And that therefore they might overcome these serious cost
objections that had been raised in the past. The...There were several
problems with that particular scheme that caused it to go the way of all of
the air mobile schemes. The first one was that the cost numbers did not seem
to stand up under close examination. It involved some fairly radical
technology which just didn't really seem to be there. And the second one was
that the difficulty of flying nuclear-armed missiles in a manner which is
safe and fully acceptable to the public, is a matter which has just simply
not been resolved. One imagined airports on the West Coast of the United
States that would be located away from people and where the flying would be
done in such a way that there would be no hazard to crashes on the ground
and where the deployment area would be selected areas of the ocean over
which the aircraft would fly and no others, in order to limit the
circumstances of the aircraft being in places where it's, where its crash
could cause harm. But as one looked more and more at the details of that, it
began to look, look less and less attractive. And therefore that particular
air mobile scheme, like others, seemed to fail the real test that we wanted
to apply to it.

Interviewer:

WHY DID WE NEED THE 200 MX MISSILES SO BADLY?

Allen:

Following the recognition of the improved accuracy of the
Soviet systems, coupled with the recognition that the SS-18 was being
deployed under, in a mode in which it had at least ten warheads on it, the
United States began to become more and more concerned about the
survivability of the Minuteman force. The calculations that we would do
under assumptions that the Soviets would put perhaps two of these warheads
on each Minuteman silo and they had enough re-entry vehicles to be able to
afford to do that, yielded an inability of the Minuteman system to ride out
the attack, and to survive with, with acceptable numbers at all. Now we
still believe very much that the United States should strive to have a, a
triad of forces, so that each leg of that triad can offset the weaknesses
which another leg might have. Therefore it was our desire to find some way
to restore the capability of that land-based missile force. It was during
this period of time, for example, that the term window of vulnerability came
to be used, Now, referring to the vulnerability of the Minuteman system,
unfortunately that term got to be applied as though the United States itself
in its entirety was vulnerable, which of course was incorrect, and the
Scowcroft Commission pointed that out very well. That the other legs of the
triad provided robustness during a period of time when one was concerned
about the land-based leg. But the fact remains that the, that the Minuteman
force was both old in terms of the missiles themselves and their technology,
and we were looking 15 years downstream. And it would seem as though we
needed both to replace that missile and to replace it in some system that
would provide survivability.

Interviewer:

ASKS ABOUT VAN CLEEVE: DID HE HURT THIS BASING SCHEME IN
MANAGING REAGAN'S ELECTION CAMPAIGN?

Allen:

During President Reagan's campaign, one of the military
advisers that he used and I presumed relied to some degree on was William
van Cleave of California. Dr. van Cleave did not think very highly of arms
control at all, and he certainly didn't think very highly of the particular
schemes of basing and weapons choices that the Air Force had made. And
therefore he advised President Reagan that we were on the wrong track and
then immediately after President Reagan was elected, Dr. van Cleave came to
see me and informed me that...my idea were wrong, and that he had
clearly informed the President that, that those ideas were incorrect.

[END OF TAPE A12153]

Allen:

The arguements which the Scowcroft Commison formulated,
for putting 50 MX in silos were, making the best out of a bad situation.
I think that I am never comfortable with putting missiles on which one is
spending good money, into a basing system which is not, not survivable. But the
Scowcroft Commission arguments were largely that that was an appropriate interim
step to do, and that there were a number of other approaches which needed to be
examined concurrently. One of those which I personally think is an appropriate
response to the very difficult situation that we have found ourselves in, is the
single weapon ballistic missile. The reason for that of course is that it then...
obtains its own survivability by requiring for the Soviets to attack it properly,
to devote a weapon to, to a missile which can be moved about. And that turns out
to enable one to have a single RV system in a basing system that will be survivable, much
more easily than a missile which has a large number of weapons on it.

Interviewer:

IS IT TOO EXPENSIVE? DISCUSS.

Allen:

The MX missile with its ten warheads represents, if you
like, an attractive target to a Soviet weaponeer. Because he can then assign
a, a single weapon to that missile and in the process destroy ten of our
weapons. The approach which the Scowcroft Commission discussed, we of course
had examined it earlier and rejected it for various reasons, was to look
very carefully at a single weapon missile. That then would increase the
Soviet targeting problem greatly. Now the trouble with that is that that
then becomes very expensive. One has lost the advantages of scale that come
from ten weapons per missile, by going to only one weapon per missile. And
that this, at this present time the Air Force is finding it very difficult
to address the very high costs of that system. But I personally think it's
the direction in which the country needs to move.

Interviewer:

WHY HAD HE REJECTED IT EARLIER? FALSE START.

Allen:

We had rejected the single weapon missile earlier because
of cost arguments, that is, we obtained a higher degree of economy by having
ten weapons on a missile, and then having more than ten locations for each
missile. So we obtained the same effect of, and even a little bit better, of
a single weapon missile, and were able to do so at less cost. So, but when
one has lost that, abandoned that particular deceptive basing scheme, then
the single weapon missile becomes a much more attractive approach.

Interviewer:

ASKS ABOUT RAIL GARRISON NOW?

Allen:

The Strategic Air Command now, and I presume others in the
Air Force as well, are advocating the rail garrison mode of deployment of
the MX. This again is a system that has been examined over the years and is
another way of obtaining mobility. It will have its own problems because it
doesn't afford a very easy way to base them survivably during periods of low
alert. But it does provide a way to get them mobile during periods of
tension.

Interviewer:

IS THERE A LESSON IN THE LONG STRUGGLE TO FIND A BASING
MODE FOR THE MX?

Allen:

The history of trying to find an acceptable home for the
land-based missiles has been a very painful one. It's one in which this
country has found the, the differences between ourselves and the Soviet
Union particularly awkward to accommodate. Their large real estate, their
ability to move missiles in amongst the population, are things which we
don't share in the same degree. I believe that a land-based missile
component of the triad is important. I believe in fact that it's important
that it be based on the homeland. I don't believe that you have an
acceptable deterrence if your deterrent forces are all located at sea, for
example. So, we have faced a very difficult issue, we have not found answers
which are fully acceptable. And I believe it is necessary to continue to
address that until we find a solution that we can all live with.